


It Is Enough

by LonePiper



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Canon, Royai - Freeform, Royai Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 01:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19163113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonePiper/pseuds/LonePiper
Summary: Royai Week 2019 - Day 2 Picture PromptAlchemy is not kind. ... It can wear you thin. It can break you down.





	It Is Enough

Alchemy is not kind.

It’s a skill, a philosophy, a tool, a way of life even. The manipulation of elemental forces, deconstructing, reconstructing; matter and energy back and forth, constrained by the will of an alchemist. It can wear you thin. It can break you down.

Years of commanding flame at the snap of his fingers. 

Now Mustang wields words and statutes. Years of striving to construct a better nation from the elements of the past. Documents and statutes empowered with the stroke of a pen.

Hawkeye watches as he adjusts the pen, works to get a steady grip on its too slender shaft. Joints in his middle finger and thumb, swollen and distended with arthritis, bend at painful angles.

As he moves to sign yet another document, the pen slips from his grasp and rolls across the table. Hawkeye catches it. She notices as Mustang presses his hand out flat on the table, stretching the joints, frustrated; a quiet grunt escaping his lips as he turns to look up at her.

“One moment, sir” she says, and moves across to her desk, returning with a different, thicker pen.

“I found this at the Quartermaster's Store. Thought it might be useful.”

He smiles, and she knows that he knows she’s lying. She found the pen at a civilian stationers.

Mustang nods as he reaches out to take the pen.

Their hands touch in that moment. Fingers, gently enfolded, lingering in a fleeting eternity of contact.

Kindness is an alchemy.

It’s a practice that can make the most mundane of moments precious beyond expression.

It is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to contribute something to Royai Week 2019. And so far this is it. I feel it's a bit corny, and not sure the ending sticks, and the title is dodgy, but I'm mostly happy with it, and super happy to have actually completed something. I know it's very short. But it's something! :D
> 
> Huge thanks to @runningfromthecuccos on Tumblr for checking this over for me.
> 
> Anyway, as always, I'd be stoked if you'd let me know what you think of it. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
> 
> Happy Day!


End file.
